October 28, 2019
Manitoba Invests in Community Mobilization Hub for Portage la Prairie
– – –Hub Helps Build Important Local Partnerships: Cullen
Since the Manitoba government released its Policing and Public Safety Strategy earlier this year, significant progress has been made in building stronger partnerships and better supporting Manitobans in crisis, Justice Minister Cliff Cullen announced today.
“Our strategy sets out a plan to achieve a safer province for all Manitobans, recognizing that we can do more when we work together – including police agencies, community services and the health-care sector,” said Cullen. “We are making significant investments across the province to support better co-ordination, more appropriate interventions and a better use of police resources.”
The province is investing $65,000 to support the work of a community mobilization hub in Portage la Prairie, which connects social service professionals and community agencies with at-risk youth and families to ensure they are receiving appropriate and timely supports and interventions. Participating agencies include the Portage la Prairie Community Revitalization Corporation (PCRC), RCMP, the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba and Southern Health – Santé Sud. Funding will allow the hub to hire a program co-ordinator, who will provide supports to families on a longer-term basis, and support program-related expenditures.
“The Portage la Prairie hub team would like to thank the province for the funding to support this initiative, aimed to improve health and public safety in our community,” said Victoria Espey, executive director, PCRC.
Manitoba’s Policing and Public Safety Strategy, announced in May 2019, identifies community mobilization as an effective way to build local partnerships, prevent crime and help keep at-risk individuals out of the criminal justice system. In total, the Manitoba government is investing approximately $1 million to build, enhance and support community mobilization across the province in 2019-20.
The strategy also recognizes the need to reduce extraneous demands on police, recognizing mental health challenges are often better addressed by other professionals. Related investments help ensure better outcomes for people in mental health crisis, manage the demands placed on police officers and ensure appropriate support is provided when and where it is needed, the minister noted.
To date, the Manitoba government has committed more than half a million dollars to ensure police officers across the province can access Health IM, a digital system to help determine the most appropriate response to a person in mental health crisis based on their observations and a specialized risk assessment tool. From February to August, Health IM was used more than 1,250 times and in 36 per cent of cases, the person remained in the community and did not require hospitalization or other urgent interventions. This ensures officers can spend more time in the community doing active police work, and less time transporting or waiting with individuals in hospital. Over the same time, 35 per cent of individuals were voluntarily transported to hospital for assistance, and another 23 per cent were involuntarily apprehended under The Mental Health Act.
By providing a better understanding of the individual’s needs, officers using Health IM spend an average of one hour and 48 minutes waiting with individuals who require hospital care. Anecdotally, this took much longer in the past, ranging from several hours to days in situations where transport was required from rural or northern areas.
“The expansion of the community mobilization program in Portage la Prairie and the continued use of the Health IM tool are two innovative ways we are working with the Province of Manitoba and our partners to enhance public safety,” said Assistant Commissioner Jane MacLatchy, commanding officer of the Manitoba RCMP. “These two important initiatives truly help our officers to ensure people who may be experiencing difficulties in their lives, or who may be in crisis, receive the targeted help they need.”
Manitoba’s Policing and Public Safety Strategy is available online at www.gov.mb.ca/justice/pubs/police_publicsafety_strategy.pdf.
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